Graham Onions will wear the broadest smile in Derby when he takes the field
for England Lions against Sri Lanka today.

Fit for purpose: England's Graham Onions is once again able to bowl pain free after 15 months out with a career-threatening back injuryPhoto: PA

By Telegraph staff and agencies

4:31AM BST 19 May 2011

Onions is already scenting a Test return but is thankful merely to be back on a cricket field and able to bowl without pain after 15 months out with a career-threatening back injury.

The Durham fast bowler admits there were times when he feared he might never play again, for county or country, and even began contemplating what else he might have to do for a living.

Instead, the 28-year-old – who refused to believe initially that what he thought were back spasms might be serious enough to require surgery – is back in the frame, alongside fellow seamers Ajmal Shahzad and Steven Finn in the four-day match against the tourists, to push for a place in the Test squad.

Asked whether he has had to compromise his pace or modify his action, Onions insisted the only difference in his appearance may be that he will look a lot more cheerful.

‘’You might see a smile on my face, that I am actually playing cricket,’’ he said.

Onions knows he could so easily have had much less to look forward to.

‘’I might have been signing on, been on the dole,’’ he added.

‘’But I like to think the tough times have all gone, are in the past.’’

He knew all along he wanted to stay in cricket, and began thinking about how he would do so if his body let him down.

‘’I did a few college courses, and started my Level Three coaching.

‘’I was thinking realistically I might not play cricket again, so I needed to do something that would keep me in the game.

‘’But now I am feeling pretty much 100 per cent sure that my body will stand up to five-day cricket.’’

Onions still recalls the day the England and Wales Cricket Board’s medical staff told him the prognosis for his injury – and his reaction to it.

‘’I genuinely thought I just had a back spasm, or a stiff back.

‘’It felt better after about three or four days’ rest. But then I tried to bowl again, and the same symptoms came back.

‘’I had no idea at the time that I would have to have surgery.

‘’They sat down with me, and I said ‘What is the worst-case scenario?’

‘’They said potentially you could have to have surgery. I basically laughed in their faces. I thought that just wasn’t an option.

‘’But here I am today with a titanium screw in the left-hand side of my back.’’

With much support from within the ECB and from family and friends, Onions has already made his mark again in two LV= County Championship matches for Durham.

‘’The confidence you get when you start to play again after an injury ... it is such an ego boost,’’ he said.

‘’It was a bonus when I got those five wickets against Yorkshire. I was just absolutely delighted that I was playing cricket again.’’

He can expect to be partnered in the Lions seam attack by fellow England hopefuls Shahzad and Finn against a Sri Lanka team set to be bolstered by the arrivals of Mahela Jayawardene and Kumar Sangakkara after new captain Tillekeratne Dilshan marked his first match in charge with an opening win over Middlesex at Uxbridge.